The Fall of the Devil and the Angels

And so we are clearly shown that some of the leaders out of that number fell, by the laments of Ezekiel and Isaiah, in which we know that the prince of Tyre, or that Lucifer who rose in the morning, is mourned with a sorrowful lament. Of him the Lord speaks to Ezekiel like this: “Son of man, take up a lament over the prince of Tyre, and say to him: Thus says the Lord God: You were the seal of likeness, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. You were in the delights of the paradise of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, the topaz and the jasper, the chrysolite and the onyx and the beryl, the sapphire and the carbuncle and the emerald; gold was the work of your beauty, and your pipes were prepared on the day you were created. You were a cherub stretched out and protecting, and I set you on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were perfect in your ways from the day of your creation, until iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trade your inner parts were filled with iniquity, and you sinned; and I cast you out from the mountain of God, and destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. And your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you lost your wisdom in your beauty. I have cast you to the ground; I have set you before the face of kings, so that they might look at you. You have defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities and by the iniquity of your trading.” [a]

Isaiah too says of another: “How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who rose in the morning! How you have fallen to the ground, you who wounded the nations! And you said in your heart: I will go up into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will go up above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.”

But Holy Scripture tells us that these did not fall alone from that summit of their blessed station, for it tells us that the dragon dragged down a third of the stars along with himself. One of the apostles says still more plainly: “But the angels who did not keep their first position, but left their own dwelling, he has kept in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” And this which is said to us, “But you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes,” what does it imply but that many princes have fallen? From these testimonies we can gather the reason for this diversity. Either they still keep those differences of rank, which the hostile powers are said to have after the manner of the holy and heavenly virtues, from the station of the former rank in which each of them was created. Or else, though they themselves were cast down from the heavenly places, yet as a reward for the wickedness in which they have risen by degrees in evil, they perversely claim these grades and titles of rank among themselves, in imitation of those virtues that have stood firm there.